


living in the middle (with someone like me)

by muppetstiefel



Series: waiting's everything you know [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Assault, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Maxine "Max" Mayfield Friendship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Moving On, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, References to Depression, Sad Eleven | Jane Hopper, Sad Will Byers, Step-Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, The Void, Will Byers-centric, i swear it's happier than it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 20:30:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: "He’s still crying but it feels distant, an empty gesture rolling down his face in the guise of tears. He doesn’t look to see if anyone else is crying, doesn’t want to intrude. Instead he keeps his gaze firmly on the trees, and the green, and the sign declaring “You are now leaving Hawkins.”In which Will Byers leaves Hawkins and tries to start again.





	living in the middle (with someone like me)

They leave Hawkins in August. 

Will always thought he liked it best in autumn, with the faded brown leaves and the spider’s webs strung between porches. When he was younger, he always insisted it was the best time of the year. The pallet of reds and browns would mix together in the sky like a drawing, or the paint that Jonathan had mixed to paint their room. He lived for the scarfs and gloves, the home made costumes and the apples coated in sticky toffee.

After it all happened, autumn became a lot more discoloured to him. A season of endless grey, coating the road stretching from Mike’s, the hallway of their house and all of Hawkins.

Will realises, as the car pulls away and edges towards the towns border, that Hawkins looks the best in summer. Green peeking through the suburbs, hills and dips creating a line that wavers across the horizon.

He stretches back in his seat to get a last glimpse of what is quickly fading and all he sees is Green- trees looming overhead.

He’s still crying but it feels distant, an empty gesture rolling down his face in the guise of tears. He doesn’t look to see if anyone else is crying, doesn’t want to intrude. Instead he keeps his gaze firmly on the trees, and the green, and the sign declaring “You are now leaving Hawkins.”

They drive in silence. At one point, Jonathan reaches out and fiddles with the radio dial, but receives only scratchy static. He catches Will looking and shoots him a smile. It’s watery at best.

Will tries to do nothing. He sits still, stares at the glass. He tries not to breathe, or twitch, because if he does he’ll crumple like wet paper, in the back of the car with a girl he barely knows.

Eleven- El, she told him specifically not to call her Eleven, and who is he to disagree- seems to be following the same method as him. Her blank stare is less blank and more intense, like she’s trying to focus on blowing up the surrounding woodlands. But her eyes are blotchy, and her hands seem to ghost repeatedly over a folded letter.

An hour before they reach the house, they hit a pothole. The car jerks, swerves left and throws its contents into the air. Will’s head collides with the car roof and his hand instinctively flies to it.

“Sorry, sorry,” It’s his mom, but she’s breathless and she’s laughing slightly, “I forgot how tall you are now. My bad driving was never a problem when you were younger.”

Jonathan is shaking his head but his shoulders are shaking too and Will can feel his laughter through the car. 

He lets out a small laugh, breathy and light, his eyes catching on El. She’s watching him, eyes wide and expression unreadable. Her gaze seems less dark, less intense and before Will can unfurrow his eyebrows she’s laughing, covering her mouth with her hands to stifle it.

And Will’s laughing too, his head throbbing and eyes stinging but he’s laughing.

Jonathan reaches forward and turns the dial again, and this time the sound of Bruce Springsteen crackles through.

Will lets out the breath he’s been holding since they left Hawkins.

* * *

They start school in September.

Will has been dreading it for months. 

His mom takes both him and El – it’s Jane, officially now, but he can’t seem to stop calling her El and she doesn’t seem to mind – out to be stationary. They left most of their stuff in Hawkins, discarded or donated. It’s a fresh start, Joyce says as they load a cart with pencils and rulers. Will says nothing. El just nods and grabs a pack of pens. 

They each chose a backpack and shove the contents of their purchase inside. Will stands for a long time, deliberating between the rows of bags printed with pictures of Han Solo and Darth Vader, before picking a faded grey one instead. El just watches him, silently, unnervingly, before reaching out and picking the same bag as him.

He tries for a smile. She does the same.

They’re crossing towards the car when Will sees them. Rows of bikes, gleaming in the shop window, propped up against one another. He stares at them. Tests to see if they remind him of Before. Feels nothing but longing.

“Bikes?” It’s El. Her voice is scratchy, barely above a whisper. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he dimly realises she hasn’t really spoken since they left Hawkins.

Will nods, gaze firmly fixed on the window display. “Yeah. I used to have one just like that,” he jabs at the glass with his finger. “I begged my mom for months to get me it. I used to have Jonathan’s old one, but I wanted one just like-” 

Suddenly there’s a lump in his throat, forcing its way up, cutting off his breath. It’s the first time he’s properly thought about home, about them, about him and it feels like plunging his fingers into an infected wound.

But El is there, voice calm, steady as a rock. “Mike?” She fills in his blank like a question, but it never really was. It never is.

He nods again, shakily, forcing air into his lungs. “Yeah. Just like Mike.”

And El understands, she always understands. She curls her fingers around his clenched fist and eases it gently into a flat palm. She presses their hands together and its steadying. Will can breathe properly again.

“Will? El?” Joyce’s voice from the car. El smiles but it’s not shaky, it’s certain. Will feels certain too, as she pulls him across the tarmac and away from the bikes in the window.

Jonathan makes the two of them stand at the bottom of the stairs for a photo. 

“It’s a tradition,” he insists, reaching out to mess up Will’s hair, who tries and fails to swot him away.

“Plus,” Joyce interjects from the kitchen where she’s buttering toast, “It’s your first day of high school. We can’t miss that.”

Will rolls his eyes but drops his bag anyway.

It’s El who seems most surprised, brows furrowed. “Me?” She points to her chest.

Jonathan nods, “Yeah. It’s your first day too.”

Will had thought he’d gotten good at reading El’s expressions. She looks angry a lot, but he quickly realised that was just her default. She looks bewildered sometimes, smiles more than he realised but is rarely sad. Sometimes Will thinks he catches her, a glimpse of a tear or shaking shoulders but the look quickly morphs into a softer anger. Not that that disguises the sound of her tears that fill their room at night.

Now, however, he can’t work out the look on her face. It seems perfectly vacant, crafted that way. She gently places her bag next to Will’s, pulls her hair out of the hair tie and stands at the bottom of the staircase.

“Okay you two, smile!” Joyce is beaming back at them and they both push a smile to their faces. El nudges him slightly and he nudges her back. 

“Now go on, or you’ll miss the bus.”

Jonathan was right, Will quickly realises. High school is just middle school but bigger.

It’s weird, walking the school hallways with El. She’s quiet, deadly, and good company. But she’s not his party, not his usual crowd, the band of ‘freaks’ he had got so used to having at his side.

They look like siblings. That’s how they’re enrolled on the school database, anyway. Will and Jane Byers. El had wanted to be El. Wanted to be Hopper. She had screamed for hours afterwards, pulling clothes out of the wardrobe and shoving books onto the floor. And then she had cried, sobbed, while Joyce held her. Will felt like an intruder watching them. They looked like a proper family.

No one approaches them, not with El at their side. Even without her powers she looks murderous. Will doesn’t know whether to be upset or relieved. He decides on relieved when they pass through a particular daunting crowd with no issue.

Will stares at the crumpled timetable in his hand, balled up in his fist. “I’m in room 77. Chemistry.”

“102,” El replies, voice sticking on each number. She stands out against the whitewash of the corridors in the luminous pink dress Max had given her when they left. “English.”

He watches as the crowds pull the two of them apart, waves of students ebbing and flowing down the corridor.

He gets to his class early, and carefully selects a seat at the back of the room. Near the window. An escape route.

Not being with El feels like he’s missing a limb, he realises suddenly. It stings in his head. Two months ago he barely knew her. She was just an extension of Mike, a reminder of the time he lost. And now she is Mike, and Hawkins, and Summer. The only connection left. And yet, she is more than that to him. He just doesn’t know what.

He wishes he was in Hawkins, in Mr Clarke’s classroom. Watching the rusty projector flicker through a slideshow. Being one of only four watching. Five with Max. Six, even, with El.

He closes his eyes to see the way Dustin’s nose folds like paper when he laughs. Lucas punching a balled up fist into his flat palm, leg bouncing fluidly. Mike, hair covering his eyes, shorts and socks nearly meeting at his knee.

And when he opens his eyes he’s alone again, in a classroom that is not in Hawkins.

* * *

September comes and goes with El by his side. She is fearless, and cleverer than Will ever realised before. She studies for hours and hours, crafting her writing into a neat print and drilling through sums. Her speech is still disjointed, stilted and with gaps like missing teeth, but she doesn’t care about that.

They don’t make any friends but they have each other. They eat together at lunch, backs pressed against the railings at the edge of the school. They skip the bus sometimes and walk home together, using their bus money to fill their bags with sweets instead. They test to see if El’s powers are and buy comics on the weekend. They don’t talk, not really, but they don’t need to. They know what the other would want to say, anyway.

Will wouldn’t even know where to start with friends if he did want them. There is so much past he can’t mention, wouldn’t want to mention. He doesn’t want to go back to Zombie Boy. He likes being Will Byers. Normal kid, slightly odd, very quiet, but pretty normal.

Without El by his side, school is a lot harder. His honour classes pass fine. Sometimes he struggles to keep up, worries he shouldn’t be there, but people leave him alone.  
Gym is the hardest. He’s a head taller than most of the boys there, but he’s lanky and thin, all bones jutting out of his skin awkwardly. He zones out once, gaze lingering too long on the torso of another boy.

After three weeks at a new school the nicknames are back, just as aimed and vicious as before. He certainly didn’t miss it. Sometimes he wishes they still called him Zombie Boy.

But there’s always El and Mom and Jonathan and that’s all he needs, really. And there’s Dustin and Max and Lucas and Mike, just a phone call away and with a promise to see them at Christmas time. Some nights, El curls away from him in her bed, whispers something that Will can’t hear into her pillow. She’s talking to Mike, a walkie swimming in the sheets, and he has to try really hard not to feel the tendrils of jealousy grip at his stomach. It doesn’t always work.

October emerges with the promise of Halloween and colder weather. It also emerged with a surprise.

It’s a Saturday morning, one Will had been adamant all week he was going to spend on the sofa watching cartoons with the blinds drawn. El and Joyce had left earlier that day to go shopping, leaving him behind with Jonathan, whose flipping pancakes in the kitchen.

He hears them before he sees them. Two hushed voices, muffled laughter, and then silence. They stop short of the door.

Will turns the television off, watching as the screen fades to green then black, and goes to investigate. He grasps the door handle and wrangles it open, squinting into the sunlight.

“Surprise!” It’s his moms voice. Her hands are wrapped around the handle of a bike. Its dented, a faded blue with scratched paintwork and a cracked light, but it looks almost identical to the one he had Before.

El is beaming at him. Actually beaming. She’s clutching onto a bike too, an electric green twin.

Will wraps his arms around both of them in one go, pulling the three of them into a heaped mess of people and bikes.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he repeats giddily. He takes the bike of Joyce and starts to push it into the clearing in the lawn.

El follows him. Awkwardly manoeuvres her bike. Clears her throat. 

“Can’t. Can’t ride.” She announces, eyes flitting between Will and Joyce.

“It’s easy. I can teach you,” Will pipes up.

But Joyce shakes her head, unfolding her arms, “No, no way. I’ll teach you. I taught Jonathan and Will. And look how they turned out.”

“Pretty awful,” Jonathan shouts through the window. Joyce shoos him.

El tightens her grip on the bike handles. “Sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

They spend the afternoon teaching El how to ride her bike. She’s determined, focused and intense as always. Joyce holds onto the back of her seat as they teach her how to pedal, one foot and then the other. She swerves, steering jaunty, until Will takes hold of the handlebar for the front and soothes her steering.

“Gently, yeah like that,” he encourages as she makes a smooth turn, “just think of your bike as your noble steed. Treat it with love and it will return it.”

“When did I raise such a dork?” Joyce teases.

“Dork,” El whispers under her breath. Will scrunches up her face until she laughs.

When Joyce finally let’s go, El soars. She pedals and swerves with the enthusiasm of a puppy but the bike never once falters. She pulls away down the street and Will grabs his bike, slinging his leg over and trying to catch up with her.

She pedals faster, turning down roads Will doesn’t know, laughing and cheering. And Will laughs too, head titled up to the sky, screaming joyfully into the air.  
She pulls up near the river, dumping her bike by the side and raising her fists triumphantly.

“Flying,” is all she says as she wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder.

They quickly fall into the grooves of October.

The school bus is quickly discarded in favour of their bikes, which they cycle through wind and sleet. Will can’t remember the last time he felt so alone, yet not terrified and isolated. With El by his side, twisting her handlebars and pedalling up hills, he feels like he could conquer the world.

And so, there new routine is formed. Cycle to school. Endure the day. Cycle home. Do their homework. Watch cartoons. Do chores. Repeat.

Once a week the party calls. Sometimes they all call together, tinny voices rattling in the speakers. Him and El share the phone between the two of them, fighting to hold, or to speak. Sometimes it’s just a few of them, or one of them. Sometimes Dustin calls and asks ridiculous questions to prove himself right in some argument with Lucas. Sometimes it’s Max who calls. He leaves the phone to El on those occasions. The two of them talk for hours, hushed whispers and giggles. It’s the only time Will feels empty, watching El share secrets she can’t tell him.

But its Mike who calls the most. Always Wednesday, always eight o’clock, or just after. They both wait in the kitchen, El glaring down the phone, Will trying to distract himself by watching the handles of the clock turn instead. Will knows – of course he knows – that he should let El have Mike to herself, at least for a few minutes, but he can never pull himself away from the phone.

Their lives form quickly, far away from Hawkins. They rarely talk about Before. Stories of home instead focus on the mundane. An ‘I miss the old video store’ or ‘do you remember creepy Mr Perkins?’ or ‘School would be finishing right now’.

They don’t talk of Bob. Or of Hopper. They don’t talk about Billy, or the Demogorgon or what happened those nights.  
But that doesn’t mean Will doesn’t think about them.

* * *

November looms and so do the memories. They had called it The Anniversary Effect. Insisted that he was safe, that it was all behind him. They had lied.

On November 1st Will tells El he has to study late. She’s gripping the handles of her bike, fixing him with her signature solemn look. 

“Study?” she asks, expression inscrutable.

Will can’t meet her eye, and instead shifts his gaze to the ground and her battered combat boots. “Yeah, I’ve got to study for this test tomorrow. Its trig so, you know, it’s gonna be impossible.”

“You could,” she deliberates on each word, “study at home.”

“I’d have to lug a load of textbooks home. It’s just easier to do it here.”

He waits for her to say something. She doesn’t. instead she slings her leg over the bike and pulls away from the pavement and into the milling crowds.

The library is empty, and eerie. Will spends an hour trawling through the school’s computer database for something, anything, that is like the Mind Flayer. He comes up empty.

Which doesn’t explain the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Against his better instincts he looks up The Anniversary Effect. Pages and pages of results filter through. Cited research from medical professionals. Essays and books on the subject.

He turns off the computer and pushes the thought from him mind.

When he gets home, El is laid on her bed, flicking through an X-Men comic. “How was study?” she asks, not looking up.

“Oh, oh yeah, it was fine,” he replies hurriedly, dumping his bag on the floor.

She doesn’t talk to him for the rest of the night.

On November 4th, the power cuts out.

He’s helping his mom make dinner, watching the prepacked mash potato rotate in the microwave when it suddenly fizzles out. The appliance cuts out, fading to darkness, rotating stopping abruptly.

He looks up and is greeted only by darkness. The radio, which had been blaring Bowie, sits in silence.

His mom had been right there. Now there’s only a kitchen coated with a sheet of black. He turns, eyes seeking out El. She was on the couch, doing homework, but now she’s not.

Something is screaming at him like an alarm. ‘It’s not them that’s gone, it’s you. Again.’

He whirls around again, a scream building and dying in the back of his throat. His eyes sting and blur painfully. Breathe, he tells himself. Breathe. You’ve been here before. You got back. You can do it again.

His head in heavy and aching as he tries to breathe, tries not to curl up and cry. his legs feel like paper, about to fold beneath him-

Strong arms grip his shoulders, holding him up like a puppet. Two eyes pierce through the darkness, full of worry.

“Will? You okay?” It’s Jonathan’s voice, so the eyes must belong to him too.

Will nods shakily, clears his throat. “Mom? El?”

“Mom went to find some candles. El- El is right here,” he sidesteps a little, but keeps one hand holding him in place. Keeping him upright.

There’s another pair of eyes, curious and curiouser still. They seem to bore into him, drilling deep down into his brain. “Will?” It’s just him name, but it’s a thousand questions in one and he can’t bear it.

He wrangles himself out of Jonathan’s grip, which isn’t difficult considering their similar heights and shakes his head. “I’m fine.” When the eyes well with yet more concern, he repeats himself. “I’m fine. I swear. Just wanted to know what we’re gonna do about dinner now.”

“Powers out all over town,” It’s his mom, cradled arms full of candles. She’s smiling, and it’s so blissfully ignorant that he knows Jonathan won’t say anything. He’s not so sure about El. “Looks like it’s ice cream for dinner.”

El doesn’t stop watching him for the entire night.

On November 6th he feels cold before he even opens his eyes.

A shiver works its way up his spine through the layers and layers of blankets. His hand flies automatically to the back of his neck, tracing over the hairs standing to attention.

He wraps his arms around his front, fingernails digging into his skin. He shifts onto his side and opens his eyes.

El is watching him, mouth set in a thin line. He can see the fear in his own eyes reflected back in hers.

The house is quiet. Joyce has already left for work and Jonathan makes them pancakes in eerie silence. No radio, no bad jokes or frantic search for school work. Instead they acknowledge the anniversary by not acknowledging it.

El doesn’t speak until they reach school. She throws her bike into the rack, and blocks Will’s path into the building. “He’s not here.” It’s a statement, bold and certain.

Will shakes his head, “I know.” He skirts past her, gripping at the straps of his backpack.

“Then why,” she pursues him, bike discarded, “are you scared?”

He lets out a laugh. Its harsh, sounds wrong in his ears. “I’m not scared, El.”

“You are,” she insists, voice stilting like the sticky keys of a computer.

He stops in the middle of the hallway, in the midst of a stream of students. “How would you even know if he was back? You’re not connected anymore. Not since the gate closed. Not since you lost your powers.”

El’s usual scowl melts into a look of betrayal. Its temporary, there one minute then vanishing, replaced by clenched fists. She says nothing.

“I’m still connected. So I know if he’s back.” He swivels again, away from her, and starts in the direction of his home room.

“Will!” he can hear her, no matter how hard he tries to block it out. Her voice swims after him.

He makes it through home room and bio before he starts to feel It again. A sheen of sweat coats the back of his neck and the palm of his hands. He can’t stop shaking, the cold and hot inside his body swinging rapidly.

He makes it to the bathroom just in time to throw up, shaking as his insides convulse. He clings to the edge of the toilet to steady himself. With each bit of bile that forces its way up his throat he feels the Mind Flayer encroaching, the shadows attaching themselves to his body.

He stumbles out of the bathroom, eyes stinging, hallway lights intensifying with each second. He takes a few steps before his legs crumble beneath him. The concrete wall of the corridor is cool against his back.

His head feels hollowed out.

The sea of students seems to ebb and flow, forming a semicircle around him.

He’s crying, he knows that, can distantly hear himself sobbing. He screws up his eyes, tries to cut off the tears at their source.

“Will,” the voice is quiet. Just for him. The Mind Flayer. He balls up his fists and raises them in front of his face.

Then there are hands atop of his, smoothing them gently into flat palms. He opens his eyes to a squint and looks at the hands. They’re covered in pen and chipped orange nail polish.

El is worried. She’s always worried, but the worry feels closer. Will feels like crying more when he sees her. She’s crouched over him, just a little taller, her bag discarded a meter to the right.

She pulls him against her body, presses the two of them together. She doesn’t say anything, just lets him cry against her, knees awkwardly pressed against her chest.

Joyce picks them up. The school must have called her. She’s a mess, wrecked mascara and bitten nails but she smiles when she sees them and she doesn’t cry. She’s strong, Will realises numbly. She’s so strong.

El doesn’t let go of his hand the entire time, nails digging into his palm. It helps remind him that he’s here.

Afterwards he lays on his bed, numb all over. He hears snatches of the conversation below him. El explaining how she found him. His mom telling Jonathan. A phone call to the others, to ask how things are there. Will just lays there, staring at the ceiling.

Jonathan comes to see him. He cries a little. Says he should’ve realised. Should’ve spotted it. Sits on the floor next to his bed until Joyce arrives.

She explains that she’s called the doctors. That they’re gonna sort him out. She doesn’t cry, and he’s grateful for that. She just holds him close and strokes his hair. It’s all he needs.

El doesn’t come into the room till it’s dark outside. At first, she says nothing. Just sits on her bed and watches him. He rolls over to look at her. Tries for a smile. Fails.  
“I’m sorry,” her voice is choked, stifled. “I didn’t know.”

Will sits up slightly, “About the Mind Flayer? Listen, El, that wasn’t- it was in my head. I shouldn’t have said-”

She shakes her head, moving closer to him. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you’re…” she pauses, seemingly searching for the right word, before landing on, “Sad.”

He lets out a watery laugh, “It’s not your fault. I guess no one knew. I didn’t either, not really.”

“I’m sorry,” El repeats, eyes searching for something deeper.

Will just sighs and rolls onto his back, “Yeah. Me too.”

* * *

December means Christmas.

And Christmas means Hawkins.

It was a pre-arranged deal. Long before they moved, one night at their kitchen table. It was Jonathan who had brought it up.

“I couldn’t imagine having Christmas anywhere else,” he had said simply, between forkfuls of scrambled eggs. Will had watched his mom, gauging her reaction but she had just nodded in distant agreement. 

The drive back to Hawkins is a lot cheerier than the way out. The radio plays endless Christmas tunes and Joyce sings them all at the top of her lungs. El seems giddy, her excitement no longer contained inside. She seems to bounce in her seat, smiling and laughing at every bad joke Jonathan cracks.

Will just stares out the window. For Jonathan, Hawkins means Nancy. She’d been up to the new house once, around mid-October, but she hadn’t stayed long. It was odd, watching them together, proper adults talking careers and futures. Nancy treats Will like glass. He knows she doesn’t mean to, that she’s just scared he’ll break, but he hates it nonetheless.

And for El, Hawkins means Mike. It means secret conversations and stolen kisses and their special group of two. He’s just so used to being El’s other half. He doesn’t know how he’ll cope on his own.

They pull up outside the hotel on the edge of town and unload their bags inside. El is bubbling, ready to overflow. She grabs Will’s hand and squeezes it tightly. He returns the favour.

They’re all waiting for them at the Wheeler’s house.

Nancy sees them first. She’s outside, collecting mail when they pull up. Jonathan is yanking open the door before the car even grinds to a halt, pulling her into his arms like she’ll disappear if she doesn’t.

Lucas is next. He yanks open the Wheeler’s front door and calls behind him before barrelling towards the car. He slings an arm over Will’s shoulder, smacking his back and declaring, “Will the Wise! How you been man?”

El holds onto his hand the whole time.

The rest of the hellos are blurry at best. He feels Nancy pull him into a hug so tight he can barely breathe, but he doesn’t really care. He can hear Max and El squealing as they collide together.

Its Mike he watches. Mike, who stops before he reaches El. Mike, who pulls her into the tightest hug she has to strain onto her tiptoes. Mike, who El drags over to Will and disposes at his feet.

“I missed you,” Will blurts out before he can stop himself. He tries to smooth over the cracks. “I mean, I missed the party. All of you. It’s not the same with only two.”

Mike shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and says, “I missed you too, Will.”

Christmas day is a big, messy affair. They crowd two families around one table. Joyce offers to help Karen in the kitchen but she brushes her off in favour of drinking wine alone in the kitchen and complaining about the cooking. 

Will sits alone for the first part of the day, curled up in an arm chair watching the happy couples. He’s dragged into playing with Holly for a bit, helping her assemble a new toy, and whizzing her toy planes around the living room. she quickly gets bored and goes back to playing alone.

After thirty minutes, El comes and grabs his arm, pulling him to the bottom of the stairs where her and Mike have been hiding. He stumbles after her, awkward in his own body, unsure of himself. He looks at El questioningly, and she simply replies with a smile. “Mike is showing me… a trick? I can’t work out.”

Will sits cross legged in front of them. Mike is shuffling a deck of cards, grinning, whilst El watches, eyes burning through the pile. 

“Is this your card?” he holds up a seven of spades to a bewildered El, who snatches the card to inspect it.

“It’s sleight of hand,” Will explains, shaking his head slightly. “He hides your card and then puts it back in again.”

Mike shushes him but Will just bats him away. “Don’t say that, you’ll ruin the magic.”

“It’s not magic. It’s sleight of hand.”

Mike kicks out, aiming for his shin. Will dodges effortlessly.

And El just rolls her eyes and walks away from them, seven of spades still in hand.

The two families quickly merge into one. They eat together, around the table, fighting for food and refilling cups constantly. Will comes back from the bathroom to find a space left just for him between Mike and El. She beams at his bewildered expression and hits the seat until he sits down.

Its messy and awkward, but he doesn’t mind. He joins in El’s teasing of Mike, tries to sound enthusiastic about school when Mrs Wheeler asks and eats double his body weight in turkey. 

And afterwards, when everyone falls asleep whilst watching It’s a Wonderful Life, Will squeezes himself out from under El’s sleeping body and wanders down to the basement. 

It looks just the same as when he left it, and yet so different. The pile of blankets vaguely forming a tent have been dismantled. Boxes of games sit stacked in the corner covered by a thin layer of dust. Will throws his body down on the sagging couch like he’s done so many times before and closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of his childhood. 

They spend the next day with the party.

It’s odd to Will, how similar it feels. How quickly they fall back into the same old grooves. Dustin drags them all to the newly constructed playground near his house, despite the fact that it is 29 degrees outside and they can all barely see above the layers of scarfs. El walks the entire way there with her arms interlocked with Max, whilst Lucas and Mike debate some new movie they saw that Will hasn’t.

He trails behind, glumly watching his friends as they couple up, or be confident enough to be alone. He wonders if anyone would notice if he dropped off the end of the group. He’d gone missing before. No one had noticed, not for a little while anyway.

Then Lucas breaks off mid conversation and turns to him, parting to let him fit in between them. “Will, please tell Mike that Cemetery of Terror is way worse than Day of the Dead.”

Will just shrugs, stepping into the gap, “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen it.”

“You don’t have to. It sucks ass.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Mike protests adamantly. 

Will just laughs and happily listens to their bickering.

They leave that night. 

Will doesn’t cry, and he’s proud of himself for that. He just firmly hugs each of his friends with a promise to call. Max comes up to him when he’s loading a bag into the trunk of the car and wraps her arms around him firmly.

“Thank you for looking after her,” her voice is almost as tight as her arms. Will doesn’t say anything.

El cries the entire car ride home, legs pressed to her chest. Will wants to say something, to intervene, but he doesn’t know if it’s his place. So instead, he lets her cry. And when he thinks she’s asleep that night he slides in next to her and buries his face in her shoulder.

* * *

January means back to school.

Will certainly hadn’t missed it. The venomous names in the locker rooms. The strange looks after his breakdown in the hallway. Always being alone, unless El is by his side.

He’s grown over the break, which means his close barely fit and his hair obscures his eyes. People have their eyes trained on him, as though he’s going to freak out again. He might do, if they don’t stop staring at him.

“They’ll forget,” El whispers to him, smiling encouragingly.

Will isn’t so sure. 

Seeing the party again only made his heart ache more for Before. He realises now, that he could take any of the abuse with them by his side. It’s so much harder on your own.  
He attends class in a dream like trance for a while. Just does his work mindlessly and ignores the heckles he gets when walking to his next class.

When changing for gym one day he finds his clothes missing from the locker. He wraps his arms around his bare torso and tries not to cry. there’s laughter, but its distant and he doesn’t want to seek out the source. Instead he surrenders his shirt and grabs one from spare kit that reeks and is mysteriously stained brown.

El is furious when she finds out. She demands their names, which Will doesn’t know, because how could he? He doesn’t talk to anyone.

“You have to tell Joyce,” she instructs him as he grabs his bike.

Will shakes his head, “I’ll just worry her. It’s not worth it.”

“Will-”

“Seriously, forget it,” he dismisses her, throwing himself onto the bike seat.

She does. Or if she doesn’t, she at least doesn’t bring it up again.

January moves slowly, sluggishly. 

The boys don’t try anything else, which Will is grateful for, but he’s not sure why. He doesn’t complain though. Instead he keeps low and doesn’t do anything to aggravate them. It’s easier said than done.

He crashes into Will’s life in mid-January.

The He is question is a boy in his Advanced English class. He’s new, not to the school but to the class, an advancer who slots into the seat next to Will with a smile and dirty shoes.

His hair is curly, a mess like Dustin’s, but darker, almost black. He has clothes that actually fit him, not stretched to the limit like Will’s current shorts. His hands are always covered with ink, smudged from paper or doodling on his skin.

Unlike everyone else in the class, he actually talks to Will. Maybe he’s not aware that he is odd. Maybe he knows but doesn’t care. Whichever it is, Will doesn’t mind.

On his first day, he extends his hand to Will with a wry smile, “hey, I’m Josh.”

Will just stares at the outstretched palm, throat closing up, mouth gaping open. He doesn’t get to say anything before Mr. Saw is staring him down, narrowed eyes. “Byers? Something you’d like to share with the class?”

He shakes his head frantically and slides further down in his seat.

Josh presses his lips together to stop a smile before mouthing, “Sorry Byers.”

On his fourth day, he slides Will a note. A cartoon drawing of Mr. Saw being sawed in half by two very cartoonish looking boys. One has curly hair. The other has awfully small shorts.

Will can’t supress a rising smile.

On his sixth day, Will speaks before the other boy even sits down.

“It’s Will,” he blurts out.

Josh raises an eyebrow and slides into the seat. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you Will Byers.” He extends his hand again. This time, Will shakes it.

On his ninth day, he invites Will to spend lunch with him.

They’re leaving the classroom, the last stragglers to make an exit, bags flung over shoulders when he proposes the plan.

“We normally eat by the bins. It’s not very glamorous, but it’s fun. There’s a group of us, we play Dune, and we could always use more players…” he trails off, grinning at Will. His face is covered with ketchup, Will realises distantly.

He could agree. He could go and play Dune. He could finally make friends after four months in a new town.

Instead he shakes his head, eyes flitting to where El is waiting down the corridor. She’s staring at him through the crowds of people.

“I can’t,” he informs him, somewhat mournful but slightly glad in the same breath, “I always eat lunch with El.”

“El?” Josh frowns slightly.

Will backtracks, “Well, it’s Jane really, but we call her El.” At Josh’s blank look, he adds, “My sister?”

“Oh!” he’s smiling again; his signature look that sends bolts of electricity through Will’s body.

“I’m sorry,” Will continues, “I would love to, but it’s just a sort of tradition, and she doesn’t have many friends, well she doesn’t have any friends here-”

Josh puts a hand on his shoulder, which effectively stops Will’s rambling because it makes his brain short circuit. “It’s okay, I get it. Maybe some other time?”

Will nods numbly, but Josh is already gone, disappearing down the corridor.

He feels his hand on his shoulder for the rest of the day.

Later, when he’s cycling home with El, she says matter-of-factly, “You can eat with him. If you want.”

Will frowns, “With who?”

“That boy,” she pauses, then adds, “the one you were talking to.”

He shakes his head, “I don’t want to. I want to eat with you.”

“Sure?” Her voice is hesitant, but Will just smiles and pedals faster.

“I’m sure,” he shouts behind him. He can hear El’s laughter through the wind.

And when Joyce asks them how school was, El just grins and announces, “Will made a friend.”

  
School seems a lot less painful after that.

There are still shitheads, threats in the corridors and a sea of students that part to let them through.

But there’ also lunch with El and English with Josh, and that’s enough.

There’s Josh’s friends too. After weeks of turning down his lunch offers, Josh corners him one day after he’s leaving calculus.

“So how about lunch, Will Byers?” he asks, following Will as he starts down the corridor. He always uses his full name. Will wishes he could say he hates it.

“Sorry,” Will starts his usual routine, a speech so engraved into his head he could do it in his sleep, “I can’t. El is waiting for me.”

Josh puts his hand on Will’s locker before he can open it, which is a feat given their difference in height. “Really? Because Robert has history with your sister and he said she wasn’t in today.”

Will holds his hands up in mock-defeat. How was he to know they’d figure out El was at home, in bed with a cold. “Okay, fine, you caught me.”

“So, Will Byers,” he starts again, leaning cockily against the locker, “how about lunch?”

Josh’s friends are nice enough. They’re nerds, no doubt about it, but they seem to carry a little bit of edge. Robert is small, smaller than Will by a foot and a half, but he seems to somehow carry a bit of street cred, despite his acne and glasses. Andrew is as tall as Will, with chocolate coloured eyes and a gap-toothed smile. They’re both welcoming enough, moving to create a space for Will in their circle. Andrew teaches him the rules of Dune like the presenter of a talk show, which makes Will laugh. Robert won’t stop calling him William.

It’s weird, Will thinks, to be in a group again after so long. He likes it (even if he won’t admit it).

When they part ways to go to class, Andrew tells him, “You’re pretty good, for a first timer. It’d be a pleasure to play with you again.” He tips an imaginary hat as they part.

Josh walks him to class. “I’m sorry about them. They can be a bit much. I swear, they’re cool when you get to know them.”

“I like them,” Will insists.

“You’re welcome to join us any time,” Josh smiles at him. It’s soft and genuine.

Will nods, focusing instead on the ground. “Thanks. But, you know… El.”

“She’s welcome too.”

“I’m not sure it’s her thing.”

“Uh,” Josh presses a hand to his chest in mock-offense, “excuse you, Will Byers. Dune is everyone’s thing.”

He laughs at that, but shakes his head. “She’s just not very… talkative.”

Josh nods. Almost knowingly. “If it’s the guys you’re worried about, I could talk to them. They don’t spend time with many girls but, I could reign them in?”

Will says nothing. There’s too much to say and he wouldn’t know where to start. He just presses his lips together and turns down the hallway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Will Byers!” Josh shouts after him.

The Will Byers in question covers his face with his hands to hide the blush creeping up his neck.

When he gets home, El asks him what she missed. He suppresses a grin, and just says, “Nothing.”

* * *

It’s February when Max arrives.

Will sees her first. He’s reading in their room, sprawled across his bed, when he sees a familiar mop of red hair catching in the sunlight. It’s dancing across their front lawn, bouncing towards the door. He pulls himself off the bed to see the signature freckles of Max, a hand with dirtied fingernails reaching up to knock on the door.

By the time he gets downstairs, everyone has seen her. El has an armful of the red head and is grinning ecstatically whilst Joyce looks on, bewildered.

“What are you doing here?” El asks when she finally manages to pull back slightly.

“I got the coach up. My parents are out of town and I was bored, so I just thought-”

“Wait, hold on,” Joyce interjects, “don’t you have school?”

Max just shrugs slightly, “I can go to school with Will and El. It’s only for a few days, Mrs. Byers.”

“Please Joyce?” El asks, eyes wide. Puppy dog eyes, Jonathan calls them. They always work.

Joyce shakes her head, but she’s smiling, “Okay, okay. But you have to be home before your parents get back.”

Max beams and grabs onto El’s hand, shouting “of course, Mrs Byers!” as El pulls her up the stairs.

Will just stands, bewildered, in the middle of the kitchen.

That night is taken up with the El and Max reunion party. Will stays out of their shared room, far away from the giggling and the sounds of Cyndi Lauper. They definitely don’t want him there, he reasons. They need time to just be the two of them.

He decides instead he’s going to sleep in Jonathan’s room. He waits until there is a lull in their laughter, takes a deep breath and knocks on the door frame.  
“Come in!” It’s El’s voice, full of happiness, overflowing.

He sidesteps awkwardly through the door, “Hey… I was just coming to-”

“Will, settle a debate for us,” Max picks up two magazine pages and holds them side by side. “Who’s hotter? Andrew McCarthy or Patrick Swayze?”

“I- I don’t know,” he stumbles over his word slightly. 

Max huffs, “look, it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy, it’s just an objective thing. It’s clearly Patrick Swayze.”

“Don’t listen to her Will,” El chips in, nudging Max with her elbow.

They both stare up at him expectantly. He randomly jabs a finger at one of the magazines. Max lets out a cheer, whilst El rolls onto her back. Will starts to back out the room, but Max calls after him.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“Downstairs-” he starts, confused frown blossoming. 

“But you just qualified for girl night. You can’t go now,” Max states, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. El just nods solemnly, patting the space beside her until he sits down.

To Will, Max and El were always an enigma. To him, most girls were. But over the course of a weekend he learns the secret behind their friendship. They squabble, like he did with the party. They play games which aren’t as hellish as they first sound. 

Halfway through the night, Max pulls out a stack of comics. Wonder Woman, X-Men, Spider-Man.

“I didn’t know girls read these,” Will confesses, eyes fixed on Max’s stack. 

“Boys don’t have the monopoly on Marvel, dingus,” Max explains, flicking through the edition at the top of the pile.

They take Max for a tour of the town on Sunday. Will, on his own bike, and Max balancing on the back of El’s, holding onto her with her eyes closed. They trawl the local shops, stock up on soda and watch some cheesy romantic movie at the cinema. They take Max to the highest point in the town – which is, regrettably, not that high.

Max talks a lot about Hawkins. About the most recent argument she had with Lucas. About high school, and how much it sucks to be back at the bottom of the pile. About how Dustin managed to destroy her high score at the arcades. 

She doesn’t talk about Mike, and for once Will doesn’t mind.

He finds himself easily slotting into the duo. All their jokes extend to him, their games allowing easily for a third party. They talk about boys with him as if it’s no big deal. He likes that.

Monday is Max’s last day before her parents come back. El begs and begs Joyce to let them have the day off, but she ships them off to school just the same. They ride there, Will adamantly refusing to get back on the bus after months of freedom.

“So, what’s this place like?” Max asks, eyes scanning over the grey, cinderblock building.

“Same as any other school,” Will mutters, tightening his grasp on his bag.

“Full of Mouth Breathers,” El supplies, tone light but eyes darkening slightly. 

Walking the hallways with Max in between them is different, but in a good way. She’s fierce, just as fierce as El, and with the two of them next to him he feels okay, for once.

They’re at Will’s locker, disposing of his school books, when he hears him.

“Will Byers!” it’s Josh, pushing Will’s locker shut. “We on for lunch time?”

Will just tips his head back, signalling to the two girls behind him. Max is stood with her arms crossed against her chest, looking Josh up and down. El’s eyes are fixed solely on

Will, who just shrugs in response to her silent question.

“And you are?” Max says, voice swaying just into the side of polite.

“Boy from English,” El says, like she’s answering her question, but she’s not. She’s asking her own, directly to Will.

“Yeah, yeah,” Josh nods hastily, holding his hand out to Max, which she just stares at. He drops it. “I’m the boy from English class. Will’s friend. Josh- I’m- I’m Josh.”

“Will has friends?” Max asks with a smirk. Will fixes her with a glare.

“This is Max. She’s a friend from our old school,” he explains when Max doesn’t make any attempt to. He can still feel El’s eyes, burning into the back of his neck.

“It’s nice to meet you, Max,” Josh says, voice genuine. He trains his eyes on Will, “So… lunch?”

Will shakes his head, “No, not today… I’ll see you in English.”

“Okay Will Byers,” Josh concludes, waving as he starts down the corridor, “I’ll see you in English.”

Once he’s gone, Max raises her eyebrows at Will, grabbing onto his arm as they walk, saying nothing.

Max fits into their routine with ease. She’s a perfect fit for the school – scrappy, smart and endlessly resilient.

It’s a shame, Will thinks, when he watches her board the bus back to Hawkins that evening.

El had hugged her for ages, arms wrapped tightly around her neck as though she’s leaving forever. Max promises to come back, that she knows the route like the back of her hand. She promises to bring more comics with her and that seems to be enough for El.

That night they lie in silence, everything left unsaid bubbling in the air. There’s a rustle from the other bed. El rolling onto her side.

“I don’t mind,” she starts, voice cracking slightly. More silence. “I don’t mind if you have friends.”

Will doesn’t know what to say. So he doesn’t.

Instead, El continues, “You can have friends. If we can share. Like Max.”

He sits up in bed. Rubs at his eyes. “You want to… share my friends?”

The sound of sheets moving. El nodding.

“They’re not like Max. They’re not cool.”

“Neither are you.”

“Hey.”

A breathy laugh from the shore of the other bed. Then; “Is that a yes?”

“Sure. If you want it to be.”

He introduces El to Josh’s friends the next day.

She doesn’t really talk much, but she smiles at each of them and takes a seat next to Robert.

Josh was right, Will realises. None of them know how to talk to girls. Andrew seems scared of her, subconsciously moving further away, whilst Robert switches his conversation from Lord of the Rings to sport, a subject he clearly has no knowledge on. Even Josh seems a little off, his jokes a lot louder and more brash.

But El just rolls her eyes at all of them, picks up the closed box in the middle of the circle and asks, “How do you play?”

They form a little group pretty quickly. It’s not the same as the party – the jokes pass him by and he still struggles with the rules of Dune, but it’s nice enough. Sometimes him and El still sneak off to eat lunch alone, just the two of them. It’s nice, to be alone without worrying about letting anything slip.

Most of the time, Will wishes he could each lunch alone with Josh. The others guys are nice, but Josh is magnetic. Whenever he cracks a joke, Will finds himself laughing at it days later. He can’t seem to shake the look of his smile from his mind. 

It’s electrifying. 

It’s terrifying.

Before everything, there had been Mike. Mike, with his hair covering his eyes, and his obscure knowledge of anything you could want to know. Mike, who had held his hand when he had scraped his knee playing outside Dustin’s house. 

It was always Mike. Always just Mike. And when it was just Mike, he could brush it off. It was limited to one person, one time in his life, and that’s where it would end.  
But now there’s Josh, with his piercing eyes and his collection of fluorescent socks and the way he nudges Will under the table in English.

Josh, who may even like him back.

It’s too terrifying to even think about.

* * *

March is a biting one. Will swears it was never this cold in Hawkins.

March is also when Will and El turn fifteen. 

Technically, it’s only officially Will’s birthday. But El never knew hers and it was Will’s idea to make them the same.

“Everyone thinks we’re twins anyway,” he had told Joyce a week and a half before the big day. “It’d be weird if we didn’t have the same birthday.”

And so, on March 22nd El and Will Byers wake up to find Jonathan flipping pancakes in the kitchen and Joyce standing between two piles of presents.

They eat the pancakes on the porch. Jonathan films as Joyce sticks a candle in each of their stacks.

“Make a wish!” she chimes as they blow them out, El’s laughter causing her nose to scrunch up.

Afterwards, they unwrap their presents. Will finds a stack of books, a new vinyl, a remote controlled truck and a light for his bike amongst his presents. There is one at the bottom of the pile, wrapped in tissue paper. Inside it contains the photo of him and El on their first day of school inside a wooden frame. 

He looks over to El but she’s too busy pulling on a new pastel blue coat, with the help of Joyce.

They spend the rest of the day watching sitcom reruns on the couch, four of them crowded into the space only meant for three, maximum. They eat candy for dinner whilst Will drives his truck around the living room, bumping it into the walls and making El laugh.

Will is brushing his teeth when the phone starts to ring.

“Will! El!” It Jonathan, shouting from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s for you!”

By the time he barrels down the stairs, El is already on the phone. She extends it between them when she sees him. He can hear Dustin and Lucas, terribly trying to harmonise a chorus of happy birthday, with Max telling them to shut up in the background.

“How is it over there?” Max is chirping. “Boring without me, I bet.”

“Yo, Will! Did you see Aliens yet?” Lucas cuts her off.

Dustin’s voice is there before he can answer, “When are you guys coming to visit? We’ve been trying to teach Max DnD and she sucks. We need our cleric back!”

“I don’t suck, the rules suck.”

“Don’t blame the rules.”

They talk for a while, though Will doesn’t think it really counts as talking. More just shouting collectively. After a chorus of goodbyes and yet more promises to call, the line goes quiet, except for one voice.

“You guys still there?” Mike. He sounds tired but bemused.

“Yep,” El replies, “we’re still here.”

Will takes a deep breath. “Actually,” he starts, causing El to turn her wide eyes to him, “I was gonna head to bed.”

She frowns at him, “sure?”

He just nods, backing slowly towards the stairs. “Yeah. You two have fun. I’ll talk to you later Mike.”

“Uh, yeah. See you later Will,” he hears Mike’s voice crackle through the phone speaker.

The last thing he hears that night is El’s laughter in response to a joke he didn’t hear.

* * *

It’s April when El’s powers come back.

They weren’t expecting it. They’d given up trying months ago when no progress had been made, despite all their efforts. One night, El had confessed in him that she didn’t even really mind that much. To know that people liked her as El Byers, not as Eleven.

And they do. The party likes her. Joyce likes her. Will feels like he would be missing a limb without her by his side so, yeah, he likes her.  
Josh likes her too. After one lunchtime, he had walked Will to geography.

“Your sisters pretty cool,” he had said, voice sincere, bumping their shoulders together, “I mean, she’s terrifying. She looks like she’s going to commit arson at some point. But like, in a cool way.”

Will had laughed at that. He didn’t mention how much it meant to him. How he needed the two of them to get along in a way he couldn’t describe. “She thinks you’re pretty cool too.”

“She told you that?” Josh asks.

“She doesn’t need to. She’s my sister. I just know.”

Her powers come back one day after school.

It’s small at first. The click of a bike lock that’s being particularly stubborn. El lets out a frustrated shout and there is the familiar ‘click’ of the bolt sliding open

Will frowns, staring at the lock, and then at El. “How did you do that?”

El just shrugs, throws the lock in her bag and slings her leg over the bike seat.

“Seriously El, what was that?” he’s bewildered, bike trailing behind him.

“Nothing.”

“It clearly wasn’t nothing. You just opened-” the glare she throws over her shoulder is enough to make him lower his voice to a whisper “- you just opened the lock with your

mind. it’s your powers. It’s got to be.”

“It’s not powers,” she returns icily.

“Then what was it then?”

El heaves a sigh. “Wind?”

“Sure,” Will rolls his eyes and starts pedalling.

El bristles the whole ride home, refusing to even entertain the possibility. 

It happens again, the next day at breakfast. They’re all sitting, sleepily eating their way through a round of toast Joyce had dumped on the table before rushing off to work.

There’s a fresh jar of jam sat on the table, which Jonathan had been struggling to open for five minutes. El, eyes still hazy from sleep, had glared at it until it gave way under Jonathan’s fingers with a weak pop.

He holds the lid in one hand and the jar in the other, looking dazed between the two of them.

“Uh… thank you?” he offers to El, who just huffs out a breath and stands up.

“It wasn’t me.”

Jonathan and Will exchange a look, but neither say anything.

The third time is impossible to ignore.

It’s one of the sunniest days of 1985. They’re heading back to class after lunch. They’re running late. They’re wheezing through laughter, clutching their sides which have seized up, and bolting down the corridors to their next class.

There’s three of them.

Will, El and Josh.

Will always assumed the idea of bullies lurking behind lockers was very Hollywood. It had certainly never been the case in Hawkins. Troy, Billy and the others always seemed to lurk mainly in plain sight. Only pick on the weakest of the pack, but always do so in broad daylight.

It doesn’t seem to be the case here. They’re waiting for them in the corridors. Will doesn’t know if they’re waiting for them, or for trouble.  
Either way, they find what they’re after.

The names were always bad enough. Relentless teasing always sucked ass, but at least it didn’t leave any marks on his body.

They hurl words at first. They cut and dig into Will’s skin, but he can take it. He tilts his chin up to receive the stream of abuse. 

Josh seems to deflate, wilt under the words. Will realises that he’s never seen Josh unhappy. That that isn’t who he is. It stings, to know that he’s partly to blame for the defeated look on the other boys face.

The words fill El with rage. She has copious amounts of it at the best of times but under the pressure of the abuse, it makes her body shake with the pressure.

They go for his clothes next. The bullies – Will doesn’t even know their names which is terrifying – make aborted movements to snatch at night faded orange polo shirt, kick at his shins threateningly. El lets out a noise that sounds like a strangled cat. It just makes them laugh. 

One of them throws a fist at Will’s face. He dodges it. Just. 

He doesn’t dodge the second one.

Or the plethora of kicks that are driven into his side.

He can hear severed sobs, somewhere to his right. He doesn’t know whether it’s El or Josh. He doesn’t want to know.

There is a scream. It sounds muffled.

Then there is the sound of glass smashing. A light bulb blowing.

Then darkness.

He feels arms closing around him, helping him to his feet. They’re suffocating. They lean him against the rows of lockers, where he grits his teeth to bare the pain.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” It’s Josh, his voice shaking, his face stained with tears. He’s very definitely freaking out, Will concludes.

“Are you okay?” It’s El. Her voice is a lot closer, her face right in front of his. 

He nods distantly, eyes still fixed on the blurry image of Josh, pacing the corridor.

“He’ll be fine,” El whispers to him. Will isn’t so sure.

They both help to carry him outside. He’s limping, but it’s only slight, thank god.

No one will notice.

Josh says a fleeting goodbye. He doesn’t seem to want to stick around, can’t meet Will’s eye. That hurts more than a punch ever could.

They walk their bikes home. They’ve got the time to spare and Will can’t face cycling.

“Will…” El starts, but doesn’t continue. She doesn’t need to. Will knows.

When Joyce gets home, Will hides his pain through a smile and proudly announces, “El’s powers are back.”

It takes a long time to heal after that.

His body takes a lot of work. Thankfully the bruising seems to be mainly restricted to his lower body. It litters his thighs, angry reds and purples, but its bearable. There’s only one noticeable one on his face, but its explained away easily enough. A fall from his bike. His mom still looks worried when he tells her, but she doesn’t press. That’s good enough.

El scowls at him when he makes the excuse. She’s angry, angry at him for not telling, for putting up with pain.

“It’s not like they’re gonna bother me anymore,” Will tells her one night when they’re making dinner, “Not after your super cool trick with the lights. They think I’ve got my own personal body guard.”

El shakes her head, “They don’t know that was me.”

“Doesn’t matter. It still freaked them.”

And Will is right. They don’t bother him, not anymore. An occasional snide comment, a note slipped into his locker, but that’s all. No more stolen kit. No more lurking behind lockers. No more stray kicks.

He tries to talk to Josh the first English lesson they have together, but his seat remains empty the entire time. He finds Andrew afterwards, asks him where he is.  
Andrew just shrugs and says, “I don’t know. Ill?”

Will doesn’t see him until a whole week later. He seems the same, to an outsider. Still smiling, leg still bouncing and hands still covered in ink. But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes and he doesn’t invite Will to lunch.

It hurts. More than Will is willing to admit.

El hugs him a little tighter that lunchtimes. He’s grateful for that.

* * *

He doesn’t talk to Josh properly until it’s almost too late. The arrival of May means the end of school, and the end of school means the end of Them, whatever They are. 

He corners Josh one day before school. He’s at his locker, clearing it out for summer, when Will finds him. The sight of the freckles that pepper the other boys nose make Will’s heart drop down through his chest and onto the floor.

“Hey…” Will starts, smiling slightly. It feels sad. It probably looks sad.

Josh closes his locker with a bang, and returns the greeting. “Hello, Will Byers.”

“I just wanted-” his voice cracks in the middle of his words and he has to start again. “I guess I just wanted to say sorry. For the other day.”

Josh’s kind smile melts instead into a grimace. “It wasn’t your fault, Byers. You didn’t beat the shit out of yourself.”

Will laughs at that. It’s a sad laugh. “I didn’t mean- it’s just… you wouldn’t have been caught up in it if you weren’t friends with me.”

“What?” the other boys nose scrunches up in confusion. It’s divine, Will thinks. “Those asswipes being asswipes is not your fault.”

“I know, but you being there sort of was.”

“No it wasn’t. If I remember correctly, I was the one who asked you to join us for lunch. So if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”  
“But-”

Josh cuts him off by holding up a hand, fixing Will with the sternest look he can manage. “Don’t you dare, Will Byers. Being friends with you was my pleasure.”

The word ‘was’ stomps all over Will’s heart.

His throat dries up, and he opens his mouth to say something.

“I thought Andrew would’ve told you, that dickwad,” he curses softly at the look on his face, then sets his hand on Will’s shoulder. “I’m moving. Chicago. My dad got a promotion.” Josh doesn’t look sad. He never really looks sad. Just wistful.

“Oh,” Will doesn’t know what words to say. He never does.

“This is my last day,” he admits, “hence, the locker.” He taps the metal door fondly. With the hand he removes from Will’s shoulder.

“Well,” Will has gotten good at holding in his emotion. Almost too good. “Have fun. I’m sure Robert and Andrew are gonna miss you.”

He wants to say ‘I’m gonna miss you’. He doesn’t.

Josh just laughs and shakes his head. “They’ll live. I mean, they’ll have to learn to talk to girls on their own now.”

The Bell signals and the hallway starts to crowd. 

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later Will Byers.”

Will just nods, his throat closing up on him. He can’t breathe.

There are no grand goodbyes. No promises to call.

There’s just Josh, shouting “keep my seat in English warm for me” as he backs down the busy hallway.

There’s just Will, trying not to cry before first period.

* * *

June fades into Will’s life without much change.

There’s no more Josh. It aches, sometimes. When he thinks too hard about his smile, or his obnoxious jokes. Like a bruise he just can’t resist pressing.  
His body heals quickly. His mind takes a little longer.

But he’s got El to distract him from his healing heart, and that’s all he needs.

Every morning, without fail, she wakes him up at seven o’clock. He always answers her with a groan but she’s there, grinning down at him, already fully dressed with a backpack flung over her shoulder. She drags him out of the house without breakfast, throwing a quick goodbye to Jonathan and Joyce over her shoulder.

Most days they go to the hill. El has a whole hoard of comics now- some she’s bought herself, some left behind by Max, some presents from various people- and they spend most of the days reading.

They don’t talk. Not of El’s powers, or the scars on Will’s side or of Josh. Not of anything so fresh.

Sometimes they talk about Before. About the Upside Down. About the sinking feeling Will still feels sometimes when he watches a scary movie, or is hit by a particularly cold breeze. About El, and how Mike found her, and everything that Will missed.

Other days they go to the cinema. By the time June rolls to an end they’ve been to see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off seven times, with Karate Kid II following closely behind with five viewings.

Sometimes they just ride around the neighbourhood. Find all the haunts they missed all the other times. An abandoned video store. A tree with names engraved in it. A house with seven dogs sprawled outside on the porch.

It’s the worst summer of Will’s life. And also the best.

A month after Josh departs from his life, Jonathan leaves too.

June brings his brother, packing his life into several boxes and loading them into the trunk of a new car.

He’s moving out to New York. Chasing some dream that Will never even knew he had. Things were all fractious between them after it all happened. There was a gap in Will’s life that Jonathan knew nothing about, and that was odd because he told Jonathan everything. But he can’t talk to him about the upside down. In the same way that his brother can’t talk about Nancy, or their dad.

When Jonathan leaves, Will hugs him tighter than he’s ever hugged anyone.

He’s crying, loud and messy. Bawling into his brother’s shirt, his grip tightening on the back of his shirt. He knows Jonathan’s crying too, he can feel the tears on the back of his neck, but he says nothing.

And then, when he has to let go, he latches onto Joyce and cries into her arms instead. 

He cries until he feels steady enough to walk back into the house on his own.

* * *

July is the bleakest of all the months.

There are no more bike rides. No more early morning trips to the top of the hill to read through the new Wolverine comic. There cinema trips total out (which is good, because Will is sure he can recite Ferris Bueller from memory now).

Instead there is just El, the crackling of static, and a piece of fabric.

She spends every waking moment trawling the void for Him.

They don’t ask. They don’t have to. What else would she be doing?

Joyce tries to intervene, but all that ensues is a shouting match that ends with a bust window. El apologises for it. She doesn’t stop trying to find Him though.

Will calls Mike when she won’t. let’s him know. It’s the first time in a long time he wishes they weren’t so far away. He certainly didn’t miss feeling helpless.

She falls asleep to the sound of static. Will always switches the television off and gives her a blanket. Anything to try and help.

On the 4th of July, she doesn’t even try to find him. She spends the morning curled up in bed, staring at the wall. Joyce tries to talk to her but gets nowhere.

So Will fills a bag with supplies and goes to their room.

“Get up,” he says, as commanding as he can properly muster.

That causes El to stir slightly. She doesn’t answer him.

“Come on. You’ve got to get up sometime.”

She rolls over to face him with a groan. Her eyes are red and blotchy. Still she says nothing.

“Come on,” he says again, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet.

Will decides to leave the bikes behind and instead walks them to the hill, dumping the supplies onto the grass.

“What is this?” El asks, nose scrunched up in confusion.

He sits down in the middle of the comics and waffles. “It’s an El care kit. I called Mike and Max, asked them about things you like. Things from back home.”

El picks up a magazine. Inspects it.

“It’s not the best,” he continues sheepishly, “I had a bit of a tight budget.”

She fixes him with a stare, long and hard. “Why?”

The question catches Will off-guard. He inhales slightly. Waits.

“When my dad left- it sucked. He wasn’t- it just sucked. And I didn’t get out of bed. Not for days. I would just sleep and cry. And… well, it was Jonathan’s idea, really. He got me some new socks and a colouring pad and he just sat with me.

And it didn’t make everything better. It didn’t magically fix me. Or him. But it mended things over for a little while.”

“Like a Band-Aid,” El whispers, sitting down next to him.

He hums an affirmative, “Yeah. Like a Band-Aid.”

And if they’re both crying when El rests her head on his shoulder, there’s no one around to tell.

* * *

They arrive back in Hawkins in August.

Will missed seeing the town in summer. The way downtown is filled to the brim with school kids and parents. The rows and rows of manufactured houses. The Wheeler’s lawn, with its neatly planted flowers.

He misses Hawkins in all seasons. The white of the snow in winter. The first signs of yellow in spring. The caramel of the sky in autumn.

He misses it all distantly, like a dream. It’s all faded now like the background of an oil painting. Only his friends stand out in their technicolour. 

Home is elsewhere now. Home is his mom burning yet enough chicken in the oven. Home is listening to Max and Lucas bicker over the phone. Home is El, cycling in front of him, head tipped back, laughing into the sky.

And maybe someday home will be Mike, with his biting sarcasm and his soft touches. Or maybe it will be Josh, with his curly hair and inability to lose a game of Dune. Or maybe it will be someone else, someone who’s now only just an outline with blurred features.

But Hawkins will always be home first. Jonathan, and his mom, and his party.

He doesn’t know where home will be last. But in the car, with his mom singing along to the radio and El reaching out to squeeze his hand, he doesn’t care.

The sign reads “Welcome to Hawkins”

His heart says “Welcome Back.”

**Author's Note:**

> To say this was a labour of love would be a major understatement. I finished season three a few days after it came out and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So here is my contribution to the Stranger Things fandom, which is a big and scary place.
> 
> A few things:  
> 1) The way they're sat in the car at the beginning of this is different to the end of season three because, Plot.  
> 2) El's speech is so hard to write. Just the few lines she says in this were so hard to get in her voice but I did my best. Also her speech is getting progressively better through this whilst she's learning more.  
> 3) I tried to make the 'romance' between Will and Josh as realistic as possible because of Internalised Homophobia and Fear. Nothing is ever explicitly said, but in my head Josh likes him back too. You can really read it any way.  
> 4) The ending is also pretty ambigious. Are they moving back for good? Are they just visiting? Who Knows? I Don't.
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from the song Care by Bry.


End file.
